//------------------------------// // Part V - Chapter 4: Unto The Breach // Story: Alicornae: The Legend of Starlit Sky // by PortalJumper //------------------------------// Alicornae: The Legend of Starlit Sky Part V - Chapter 4: Unto The Breach * * * A sickening squelch of gore was the end-cap to the day that Starlit had been enduring, as the latest in an innumerable tide of thestrals slid off of the end of her sword. From the first ambush at the base of the mountain to now she had been dealing with at least three thestrals for every mile she climbed up the road. Starlit had numerous bruises, small cuts, and could feel her breath burn in her lungs from this latest bout. Taking a moment to sit down and wash her sword off in a nearby puddle, Starlit thought of just what Twilight could possibly be trying to gain from this ceaseless assault. "She said that she wanted to see me again, so why in the name of all that is good is she trying to kill me," Starlit thought as she scraped the bits of bone and dried blood off of her blade. Starlit looked out across the road to the hard drop-off at the cliff's edge; a mist was starting to roll in across the forest that she had come in from, and with the slow setting of the sun was casting the world below her in a much more menacing light. An errant pulse of magenta light drew stark shadows on the forest through the mist, though Starlit had grown used to the reminder of the city above. Starlit sat down and put her sword away, looking for any place she could hide herself away in to get at least a few hours rest. Her legs were practically numb from the effort of her ascent and fighting off multiple packs of thestrals, and all she wanted was a place to hole up here Twilight's beasts wouldn't find her. Unfortunately, with the mountain's face to her right, the drop-off to her left, and nothing ahead or behind save for the old, worn out road, Starlit's hopes for a reprieve were going to go unfulfilled. As Starlit got back to her hooves after a brief rest and some trail rations, she felt a small pulse come out of her necklace. She had started tuning out its pulses and motions since they mostly only meant that thestrals were around the corner, but this one felt different. Rather than the frenetic beat she was used to, this was a slow, soothing pulse, with an odd sensation of warmth. Starlit pulled the necklace out and held it aloft in her magic; externally it looked no different, though she could still feel its beat in her head as it presumably transferred through the magic she was holding it with. "What do you want?" Starlit asked to the air. When another apparition of Twilight failed to manifest, Starlit started to put it away before a pang of pain from a bruise on her ribs made her magic falter. The stone struck the ground with a clatter before coming to rest, though Starlit could still feel its pulse through the ground. As Starlit sucked air in through her teeth and let out a slow, steady breath to try and alleviate the pain in her ribs, a thought crossed her mind. It might turn out poorly, given what happened to Sun when he tried to probe the stone with his own magic in Sunspire, but as it stood she didn't have much to lose other than potentially her sanity. Taking the stone up with her magic again, Starlit began to focus a thin stream of her own magic into it, trying to see if she could extract some of its healing ability out of it to get her back to some semblance of strength. The pulse began to quicken, but didn't lose that odd soothing quality to it, as she felt through its magic with her own to try and find the familiar sensation that she had felt so many times before. Just when it seemed that this was going to be a fruitless venture, Starlit felt her entire body go numb as a sensation like whacking a nerve against a table corner overtook her whole body. She collapsed to the stones beneath her as her vision went dark, before it resolved into a clear image that was decidedly not of worn out stone pressed against her cheek. Starlit could see Twilight, hunched over a desk and reading through a thoroughly ancient looking tome by candlelight. She wasn't wearing the regalia she had been in the night before, and was in fact not wearing anything. Were it not for her combination of a horn and wings she would look like any other pony in Equestria. Twilight let out a yawn as she looked out a nearby window, before closing the book and standing up with a stretch. She blew out the candle before turning around, and then did a double take directly in Starlit's direction. Slowly she approached Starlit's perspective, then tapped it with her hoof. Whatever Starlit was using to look through bobbed and bounced with each tap, before holding steady as Twilight cocked her head, eyes still fixed on Starlit's metaphorical ones. The alicorn's brow furrowed, and remained so as she left the point of view that Starlit was looking through and the vision went dark again. Starlit's eyes lit up again just as the last vestiges of the sun dipped below the tree-line, and when she stood she found that she didn't have to drag herself up. On the contrary, she found her soreness and injuries from the days constant travails gone entirely; Starlit honestly felt more fit than she had when she came to the base of the mountain that morning. "You keep me alive, you heal my injuries, you spy on my enemies," Starlit said to the stone as she floated it up off of the ground and reattached it to her neck. "Twilight made a colossal mistake when she gave you to me." The slow, steady pulse from the stone halted as the words left Starlit's lips, replaced with a sharp, piercing crack sound that sent Starlit's heart skipping a beat. Lifting the stone in her magic she looked at it intensely in the fading light of the day, and felt her heart drop into her stomach and about a thousand feet past it. Marring its once smooth, polished surface, was an unmistakeable crack, a hairline fracture right in the center of the stone that bled a soft, grey light. "No, no no!" Starlit pleaded to the stone's cold facade. "Did I break it?! Could it only do that once?!" As if in answer to her question, the stone slowly began its soft rhythmic pulsing again, but softer than before. A huge sigh escaped Starlit's lungs as she dropped the stone to hang around her neck again. "Not broke, just damaged," Starlit affirmed. A long, low howl of a thestral echoed on the wind, and Starlit pulled her sword out reflexively and scanned the road both ahead of her and behind. There was no sign of any of the beasts in the immediate area, but she knew they'd be on her location soon. With a new tool at her disposal, limited though it might be, Starlit started up the march to the top again. * * * A full day of climbing followed by a full night of it should have had Starlit gasping for life on the ground, especially with the constant onslaught of thestrals as she ascended, but whatever she had done with the necklace had rid her body of all her tiredness and fatigue, so that as the sky started to brighten with the first rays of the morning she was just now starting to feel winded. Even more auspiciously, she finally saw the first signs that this road had been anything more than just a carved pathway. Just up ahead Starlit saw the beginnings of what looked like a small village. The buildings were remarkably well preserved despite the years of age and the obvious signs of damage from the war, and the further in she walked the better preserved they looked. The buildings were all carved out of the mountain itself, being made of finely hewn stone that still had some signs of the purple and golden paints they had been decorated with centuries ago. Seeing one that had still in intact door and roof, Starlit carefully opened the door with a soft creak. A fierce shriek and the pounding of a body on the other side of the door told Starlit all she needed to know about its occupants or lack thereof. Throwing the door open with her magic, Starlit blasted forward a wall of force from her horn that bowled over the thestral inside. It made to scramble to its hooves, a menacing purplish-grey magic encasing its horn, before Starlit launched her sword forward and jammed it right into the monster's neck. A strained gurgle leaked out of its throat before it collapsed to the floor with a dull thump. A quick burst of magic and a squelch of blood and sinew returned the sword to Starlit's side, giving her some time to examine the room she found herself in. From what she could tell, this place was at one time somepony's home, and a quaint one at that. There were small knick-knacks covered in centuries of dust on a stone mantlepiece above a fireplace, what might have once been a couch that was currently tatters of old cloth and wood on the far side underneath a window, and two doorways that led to a bedroom and what was presumably a small kitchen judging by the empty stone basin. Starlit shut the heavy wooden door behind her and locked it with the remarkably still intact deadbolt before closing the empty window frames with what appeared to be small, translucent stone shutter that slid along the wall. The stone was just thin enough that some light could shine through it, but not so thin that it would risk breaking even under serious stress. "I'd love to meet the carver that could make something like this," Starlit mused to herself as she pulled the packs off of her haunches and undid her sword belt, "although I have the sneaking suspicion that it was probably carved by magic." With her small holdfast secured, Starlit took the saddlebags off of her haunches, undid the buckles of her armor, and unwound the sword belt from her waist. It had been days since she could let her fur feel the open air, and the accumulated grime made her nose reflexively curl up at the stench. "What I wouldn't do for a bath right about now," Starlit groused to herself as she dragged the thestral corpse off to the corner. It was a grisly sight to be sure, but one she was used to by this point, and she didn't want to attract undue attention from whatever else might be in this ruined town by throwing the body outside. A cursory search of the house turned up nothing of value that Starlit could take; all of the food that might've been here had turned to dust, any extra clothes were nothing more than tatters and scraps of once-fine fabrics, and whoever had once lived here didn't keep any weaponry. The only thing of interest was a metal pipe sticking out of the basin in the kitchen with a pair of small handles flanking either side of it. With a sharp creak the handles turned, and after a few minutes of rattling from the pipe a stream of fresh water poured out of it. "This must've been something Luna and her ilk created," Starlit mused as she filled up her near empty waterskin and gathered up large blobs of the water in her magic to rinse the grime and sweat off of herself. "A shame they never got around to giving the rest of us the ability to make things like this." With filled waterskins and a now full stomach from one of the parcels of her rations, Starlit rolled out her bedroll in front of the empty fireplace and nestled in for some much deserved sleep. It had been about a day and a half since she'd felt safe enough to rest, and she was going to capitalize on the opportunity that she was being presented with. As her eyelids started to drop and the heavy sensation of tiredness started to overtake her, Starlit could feel the thumping from the necklace once more, its pulse seeping into her chest, making a synchronous beat with her own heart. Starlit thought of home; Eclipse and Warden would just now be waking up for breakfast. She didn't know what they would be doing today, but she felt that it would involve a healthy amount of worry for herself. They'd be trying their best to not think about it, but Starlit knew her family better than that. Eclipse would ask every question that popped into her head, and Warden would be hard pressed for answers that he either didn't have or couldn't say. Starlit's eyes snapped open, the thumping beat in her chest still as soft as when she'd started to drift off. She expected to hear the sounds of hooves beating at the door, screeches of thestrals ringing across the ruined town, but there was nothing. Starlit was safe here, this much she knew. "I'm as safe as I can be, and now my own mind won't let me rest," Starlit said to herself as she sat up. With a swish of her horn she started to reassemble her belongings; refastening her sword belt, putting her armor back on, and securing the saddlebags. The process was rote and monotonous, but she did it with the same level of fastidiousness as she always had; now wasn't the time to get careless. Starlit laid a hoof on the heavy door, undid the lock with her magic, then stood there and took stock of herself. With a soft thump she pressed her head to the rough surface of the door, trying her best to maintain her composure. "This is for them, Starlit Sky," she thought to herself. "This is for Eclipse, and Warden, and Sun. This is so Equestria can have a future." A deep, bracing sigh left Starlit's lungs as she stood tall and swung the door open with her magic. As she did another pulse of magenta light from the beacon at the top of the mountain cast the world in a haze of pinks for a brief moment. Another round of screeches filled the air with the sudden flash, and Starlit pulled her sword for its sheathe in preparation. * * * Starlit had completely lost track of time as she neared what she hoped was the top of this accursed mountain. Day and night cycles passed her by and she could scarcely recall their passage, such was the nature of her ascent. Her life for the last however long was just a long, slow march, broken up every now and again by an easily-dispatched band of thestrals. Starlit hadn't slept in days, but she didn't feel it. Whether it was the magic bleeding out of the fracture in her necklace, some effect of being so close to the nexus of Twilight's power, or her own sheer force of will, she didn't feel the need to sleep whatsoever. The fact that guilt would worm its way into her gut every time she tried was secondary to this fact. The pulses of light from the top of the mountain were growing more intense and happening more rapidly with the passage of time; every time one would happen the whole world would suddenly become a blinding screen of bright magenta that would disorient her until it ended. Starlit had more than once gotten killed by a pack of thestrals because of it, although the crack in her necklace had yet to grow any larger. It was after a particularly intense one of these flashes that Starlit found what she prayed was the last step in this ascent. At the far end of this stretch of the road up the mountain Starlit could see the only piece of architecture that wasn't a wreck. In fact, it showed no wear at all, with it's perfectly hewn marble facade and gilded, glittering ornamentation. It was a gate, absolutely massive in scope and size; the frame for it was richly decorated with carvings of ponies disporting in lush fields of green and great towers of ivory, while the gates themselves were made from fine, sturdy metal that had been so throughly gilt that the shine off of them alone was nearly blinding. The only thing that could mar the singularly magnificent display of architectural masterwork before her was the fact that there was a mob of thestrals all beating themselves bloody against it, screeching and howling as they flung themselves bodily into the indefatigable structure. Not a pole was bent out of place, there wasn't a single scratch on the marble frame, just the dried blood of countless thestrals all trying their damndest to beat there way past it. Starlit took in a deep, bracing breath as she illuminated her horn. A perfect dome of translucent energy surrounded the five or so feet around her body, before slowly bending inward until it created a snug, form fitting field of energy around her body. With a second swish of her horn she drew the sword from its sheath and marched forward, just as the thestrals at the gates took notice of her casual use of magic. "You're doing this for them, Starlit Sky," she said to herself as the mob began to charge towards her. "For Eclipse, for Warden, and for Sun. You are fighting to give Equestria a future." The first thestral swooped down on featherless wings, a thin veneer of silver magic the only thing holding the beast aloft. With a flick of her head upward the sword slashed through its belly, the body crumpling overhead as thick blood spilled down upon Starlit's shield. Another followed up after it, beating down into her shield with hooves lined with spikes, which her ward took expertly. Starlit shoved it away with the flat of her blade before wheeling it around and slashing through the beast's head at eye level. The skull cap slid in two and landed on the flagstones with a squelching thud. The screeching, slavering tide of thestrals kept beating their path down the road, away from the gate, as Starlit continued to slaughter her way through their ranks. So many earth pony thestrals beat and slammed into her with preternatural strength, and Starlit's sword had to keep a manic pace to ensure that the first blow any of the got on her would be the last. Pegasus after pegasus harried her from the air, but even her willowy frame proved enough to match them as she yanked one after the other from the air and sent them hurtling to the ground below. Even the odd unicorn, with magic far more ancient and potent than hers, could not match her cunning with raw force as she redirected her ward's strength to redirect or absorb the magic they were casting at her. Blood flew and splattered the ground and Starlit herself. Her muscles burned with the sheer stress of fighting off so many combatants at once, her forehead ached from the sheer amount of magic she was channeling all at once, and even with all of her skill she was being pressed back by the sheer wave of bodies. Starlit's heart was hammering faster and faster the more she exerted herself, and the necklace matched pace expertly. Wild slashes and flailing thrusts would end one of the monsters, not for what seemed like three more to take its place. Blood caked her face and hair, her blade slaked in the life-giving ichor of dozens of monsters, and it was only when she slipped on an errant puddle of it that she remembered where she stood. A rush of wind blew past Starlit's ears as she plummeted off of the cliff, tumbling end over end through the air and screaming in abject terror the whole while. The village at the bottom of the mountain was invisible to her, such was her sheer height, although the ground was rushing to meet her. She lost the focus on her magic as she fell, losing her shield and sword as her brain panicked to try and find a solution that didn't involve hitting the ground at terminal velocity. Even with the necklace, she wasn't certain that it would survive the fall along with her. Starlit slammed her eyes shut, focusing any magic she could into her horn to try and generate a shield, something to catch the air and halt her descent. She didn't care if she had to march all the way back up the mountain, she just didn't want this to be the end. The familiar sensation of magic thrummed through her horn, but with it was another pulsating beat, soft and soothing. The wind rushing past faded into the back of her perception as Starlit gritted her teeth and channeled everything she could into this spell, until she noticed that the wind had ceased rushing at all. She felt the pull of gravity in her body again rather than the tumbling free fall feeling she had just been experiencing, save for an odd pulling sensation near her shoulders. Warily cracking an eye open, Starlit looked around and saw that she was no longer falling. Looking to either side she could see a faint bluish shimmer out of her peripheral vision. A faint sound like fluttering filled her ears, and as she crooked her neck back her jaw dropped open when she saw what was making that sound. Extending out from her back, in just the same spot that a pegasus' normally were, were a par of ghostly, blue and silver, ethereal wings. They flapped with a steady rhythm that kept Starlit aloft on hard, angular feathers of pure energy, and when she realized what they were doing they began to pull her upward, back to the fight. The fight, however, seemed to have followed her, as Starlit saw a black, screeching form shoot past her and plummet out of sight. Starlit instinctually backed away from it with a quick beat of the wings, looking up to see as the horde she had been fighting came streaming off the cliff, determined to kill her even to their own deaths. With a smile and a steely glare upward, Starlit focused her magic into her wings and rocketed upward. The thestrals fell past her in screeching droves, and Starlit ducked, weaved, and rolled around them as she rose up the cliff's face. Still completely unpracticed with her new wings, Starlit accidentally clipped a few thestrals, only to find that the energy her wings were made from could slice cleanly through flesh. Starlit's small smile broadened with each beat of her wings, the elation in her heart soaring as high as she was as she cleaved her way through the streaming horde of monsters, until she rocketed past the cliff edge she had plummeted off of. The thestrals that had yet to dive off of the mountain recoiled with hisses and shrieks as Starlit spread the wings wide to halt her ascent, a glimmering, blood-stained avatar of retribution against these monsters and the pony who commanded them. And for the first time that she could recall, Starlit saw a thestral run scared as she screamed down into their ranks on wings like swords. Their bodies crumpled and folded underneath her magic, taking numerous passes through them until they all fell dead and silent to the flagstones. Starlit didn't land with nearly the grace that a pony like Rainbow Dash might have, stumbling and tripping over herself as her hooves hit the ground before falling prone into a puddle of congealing blood. Her chest heaved with the effort, her forehead felt like somepony had tried to hammer her horn into it, and she curled up into herself when another flash of light from the mountain top blinded her. There were only two things that made her come back to some semblance of her senses; a high, piercing crack sound from her necklace, and the slow, agonizing, metal-on-stone grinding of the Gate of Antiquities opening. * * *